Greene County, Arkansas
Pictures of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church and Dacus Land
J. U. Dacus and his beloved wife Annie Hicks Dacus (Circa 1950)
Foreword by Max E. Robinson Fresno, California, January 2001
My grandfather James Euphrates Dacus (1885-1980), also know as J. U. Dacus and often called Fratus Dacus, wrote this delightful little booklet. He wrote it during the 1960’s. Family members encouraged him to write it because we loved to hear him tell stories about his life and the people he had known growing up and living in Greene County, Arkansas.
Also, even after retirement, he continued to have boundless energy and he needed projects to busy himself. He loved to write and he wrote continually, mostly to newspaper editors and to local, state and national political officeholders. He had very little formal education but he kept abreast of current events and he had a sharp mind with penetrating logic. My Uncle Avery Dacus says that Grandpa in his writing had a washer woman’s swing”, but he was, nevertheless, effective in making his points. Even now, as I thumb through his papers and the scrapbooks filled with his letters and the replies from political leaders and others, I am amazed by the freshness of his ideas and his gifted manner of expression.
He was also witty and it was fun to be with him. I spent many of my growing-up years living in Greene County with he and my Grandmother Annie Lee Hicks Dacus (1887-1974). I loved to bring friends home because Grandpa was so entertaining. Several times during the 1960’s after moving to California, he appeared as a guest on the Joe Pyne Show, a talk show type of television program originating in Los Angeles. Apparently, the producer also enjoyed Grandpa’s stories and his homespun humor.
Although fast and skillful in using farming tools and implements of the horse and buggy days, Grandpa was otherwise non-mechanical and never learned to drive a car. Once as a teenager I tried to teach him to drive but I blew it. We were going down a country road approaching his house with him at the wheel. He asked me how to stop “the blamed thing.” I told him to pull back on the steering wheel and holler, “Whoa!” He did, and he ran the car through the front yard fence. That did it for Grandpa-no more driving! Later, however, he did learn to drive a small electric golf cart type vehicle, and for more than twenty years, he and Grandma could be seen driving their little battery-powered cart all over La Verne, California.
Grandpa lived in Greene County about 65 of his 95 years. In the early years of their marriage, Grandpa and Grandma farmed just west of Light on the Orb Sturkie place. During the 1920’s and thereafter, they farmed various places in the Walcott, Buckhorn (southwest of Walcott), and Mt. Zion (Ebenezer) communities. In about 1940, Grandpa’s brother J. L. Dacus deeded him 160 acres near Buckhorn. He later acquired an adjoining 80 acres to the northwest. He and Grandma gift deeded a portion of the northwest corner of this later acquired property for the site of the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church (Buckhorn), still located there.
In 1952, he and Grandma moved to California to be near their children. Actually, they had little choice in the matter because they were somewhat stranded on the farm. Neither of them could drive. Also, they both were then about 65 years old and they still had the full-time care of an adult child (James Paul) who had to be cared for as an infant.
On behalf of the Dacus family, we do appreciate the opportunity to share The Life and Times of J. U. Dacus with those who visit the Greene County Arkansas Home Page. Grandpa was one of the most unique and unforgettable persons I have known.
Max Robinson maxrobinson@mediaone.net